National Bonds to soft launch insurance product in November

The real launch would be towards December or in the beginning of early 2016, said the chief executive of National BondsGulf News18 Oct 2015By Siddesh Suresh Mayenkar | Staff Reporterhttp://gulfnews.com/business/money/national-bonds-to-soft-launch-insurance-product-in-november-1.1602311Dubai: National Bonds wants to cash in on the under-penetrated insurance market and aims to sell this most essential product to its 800,000 strong clients spread among 200 nationalities in the UAE.And for this the UAE’s leading Sharia-compliant savings and investments company has tied up with many takaful operators and provide bundled insurance, costing just around 1 per cent of the payroll of any employer, its chief executive officer told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.“The soft launch [of the insurance product] would be in November, and the real launch would be towards December or the beginning of early 2016,” Mohammad Qasim Al Ali, the CEO of National Bonds told Gulf News on the sidelines of an industry conference.The insurance would include coverage on death, permanent and terminal disability, terminal illness, hospital cash benefits, second medical opinion, critical illness and involuntary job loss cover.The investment firm has “plenty” of plans in 2016, and “is working on different products that would complement the financial life cycle of our existing products.”Through this, National Bonds, which manages nearly Dh6 billion in asset under management, wants to focus on quality of the funds as 80 per cent of its sales are generated by existing bond holders.“We are trying to convert our existing bond holders from ad hoc savers to regular savers,” he added.For this, National Bonds introduced a product called “My Plan” a 1-3 year commitment through monthly contribution.The investment firm expects a growth of 4-5 per cent in number of clients next year.“We are growing at a conservative rate, as we are also focusing on the quality of the fund,” said Qasim Al Ali.He has also urged the employers to provide automated saving plans, of which National Bonds is a provider.“People are moving from one payroll to another and they don’t have enough emergency funds, to educate their children, so they need to start saving from now for their retirement,” he added.Huge potentialFor the growth of Islamic asset management industry, National Bonds wants to see more speed and innovation.“The potential is huge, but the speed is not there, we need to pickup on speed, said Qasim Al Ali, on the potential of Islamic asset management.“Speed should also be with innovation, so both should go together. You have to be innovative so that you can gain on speed,” said Qasim Al Ali.Islamic assets under management worldwide are likely to grow to $77 billion in 2019 from the current $60 billion but this remains only a tiny fraction of the $2 trillion global fund pool.Most of the funds are sub-scale as the $60 billion worth of managed assets are divided into hundreds of funds, with the average size of each around $20-30 million.